The One Who Has Learned Regret
by OffCenterFold
Summary: Magic does as it wills... in its own way. Years pass in a moment - or does a moment pass in years? Amalthea is dying; at last her three most loved and trusted friends can finally tell her the secret they've had to keep for all the years of her life.


**The One Who Has Learned Regret**

For years, I have been having the same dream.

I am in a forest, a lilac wood. All around me, things are green and growing and there is a sense of newness, of life; the poignant cycle of it permeates the verdant innocence with something that does not terrify me.

For some reason I cannot fathom, I find it intriguing and foreign, the concepts of death and of love.

I know that I am not incapable of these things, but in this dream they are foreign to me.

The wood is full of animal life as well as plants. Everywhere, foxes cavort with abandon beneath nests of robins and jays. Butterflies, which somehow seem special to me, dart in among the deer and rabbits at play. Even the wolves, of which there are few in the wood, seem to feel secure in this place. They all know that they are under some kind of protection.

I walk the woods often, in this dream; I sense that they are somehow mine. That somehow, it is my influence which keeps the wood green and youthful. For whatever reason, the animals feel safe because of me. In the dream I accept that as my due, just as I accept that I am beautiful and enigmatic.

And alone.

Every time I have this dream, I wake up in terror I cannot explain. I cannot cease crying, the tears flowing from my eyes like the waterfalls in the dream. There is always a sense of wrongness, a sense that something _is_ that _should not be_, and it frightens me more than I can bear. Only one dream frightens me more.

I feel the same as I do in the dream about the lilac wood, only this one is even more vivid. I am in a tunnel leading to a beach, and the water is flooding in and lapping at my feet. I can feel it, but there is something different to it, a quality of wrongness. There is a sense of desperation in the air. It is as though something is trying to break free. And there is something else, something from which I am running.

The Red Bull. I have no reason to fear him, and yet in this dream he is my greatest terror, a nightmare come to life. He is hunting me, but I cannot understand why. I can tell he wants to drive me into the sea with the others.

Others of what, I do not know. I feel that the knowledge is there, somewhere under my skin, but I cannot touch it. Something keeps me from it.

I have asked the magician, and he has no answers for me. The only time I have seen him cry is the first time I asked him what the dreams mean. But that was a long time ago.

I have asked my husband as well, and he took me in his arms, and asked me if I did not remember my life before.

I long ago accepted that I do not remember my childhood; I am sure it was something tedious and sad. My memory has never been strong. But at the time, when Lír asked me if I could not remember, I too cried. It seemed that I once had, but that something had changed inside me, changed irrevocably, and I would never be able to remember what.

A time came that it no longer mattered; at least, it was never discussed. Sometimes I still feel it hanging over us all like a cloud: though insubstantial, the weight of it seems crushing.

It may only be my imagination that it has lessened over the years; now, I watch the children of my children laugh and play in the courtyard. Sometimes, when he is not too busy with matters of state, Lír comes and puts his arms around me and we watch them together. Sometimes, however, he seems inexplicably sad, though he will not tell me why. He only holds me close, resting his chin on top of my head and watches our grandchildren.

They will inherit this kingdom, and this strange dark castle I have never much liked. Although I love it as my home, it is an odd and unwieldy place, much like the kingdom itself.

There is little of happiness here; though my Lír does his best and it is not so bad as in his father's time, there is little prosperity in the land. It has taken him many decades to even begin healing the damage done under King Haggard. Schmendrick has been invaluable to him in this, and Molly has been a pillar of strength for all of us. Schmendrick looks hardly older than my own son, however, while the rest of us have aged as humans are wont.

Molly is still quite strong, although she has begun to fade. She is, of course, somewhat older than Lír or I, but perhaps her association with Schmendrick has changed her somewhat as she does not act it. Then again, Molly Grue has always been one of the strongest people I've ever met, more than just physically.

It is a good life, and yet as I grow older, the dreams come more often. I am waking up almost every night, sometimes several times a night, choking on my own fear. More and more I stay by Lír's side as much as I can. Sometimes I feel disoriented, disconnected from reality. It is as though this is not the way things should be. I feel that something happened which should not have, or perhaps that something did not occur which ought to have done so. I am beginning to feel my strength fading.

I do not think I was ever strong, but when I say so, those who have grown close to my heart always look so pained. If there is one thing I regret about my life, it is that I have caused so much pain.

_So much pain._

_It tears through this frail, dying body, this human body. I cannot tell what is happening; the scent that is not a scent teases at the back of my throat like a distant memory rushing closer. The Red Bull stands over me, looking somehow confused and outraged. I am changing. Things inside me are tearing and knitting up in a new-old configuration. Everything is going dark._

_So much pain._

I awaken, screaming. It is a new dream, one I have never had before. There is something almost familiar about it, the scent and the feeling of it. That only makes the fear worse. Even now, though I am awake, I feel the pain of it.

Lír is calling my name.

His voice pierces through the fog, and he sounds like himself, but there is a shadow of his younger self in his voice, the young prince who courted me with silly poetry and the heads of great beasts. Then I hear him more clearly, and it is only the voice of the man I know now. He has matured well and steadily; now we are old, but he has become a good and kind king, though the land has not forgiven his father's curse.

As long as this castle stands, they say the curse will never lift, but there is no way this twisted, awkwardly built fortress will fall. For all its precarious appearance, it is perhaps the most stable, unchanging thing I have ever seen.

Even in my most frightening dreams, the castle has stood unshaken.

Now, however, it seems that the world is trembling – or perhaps it is only I who am quaking. In many ways, I am the most frail of all. Time has proven no kinder to me than any other. Though my friends are kind and my husband kinder, they have long lied to me about my beauty.

I know I was beautiful once, when Lír first grew to love me. But now I am merely an old woman who was once beautiful.

I have lived the best life I knew how, been the best human being I could be. I am growing increasingly tired, and this last dream has frightened me more than I can say. I cling to my husband, whose shoulders are only beginning to slump with age. They are still broad and strong: the shoulders of a king. His comforting arms go around me, and I love him from the bottom of my heart as he holds me and murmurs my name over and over.

"Amalthea."

"Lír." I can barely whisper his name; my throat feels horrendously tight and my heart is racing. I am aching, though I attribute it to age and the nightmare.

"What happened, Amalthea? Was it that dream again?"

I shake my head. "No. This one was different. Worse." I tell him about it, tell him about the agony so much worse for its unfamiliarity. I do not think I have ever felt such pain.

And yet, somewhere deep inside me, there is a place that does not feel things the same as others do; the part of me that is almost like an impartial observer of us all.

I watch the pain come down over this craggy, beautiful face that I love. It makes my own hurting seem both lesser and heightened: I have caused him pain.

"Oh, my love… We can no longer hide it from you." Tears are leaking from his eyes.

Tears? He's been hiding something? "Lír, what is wrong? What is happening to me?" Now I am becoming frightened, and it is a real fear from which I cannot awaken.

Suddenly and without fanfare, Schmendrick is there. Either he has brought Molly or she has come on her own. There is no way to know for sure.

"Oh, my lady," she whispers. Her eyes are huge and dark, and bright with tears. Suddenly I remember her as she looked when we met. For a moment, I see her that way, imposed on her older self.

There is little difference. Her hair has gone white, and her skin is no longer so taut over her bony face. Little else about her seems different. Her eyes, however, have not changed at all. Now she looks at me in a way I feel I have seen before, but I cannot have done so. She looks lost, as though someone has betrayed her. I fear it might be me, but I cannot imagine how.

I am becoming more and more afraid.

"My lady," Schmendrick says, in his way that is not quite mocking – but always it has been himself that he mocks. He has always treated me with reverence, even though I am his niece. I suddenly realize, now of all times, that I do not recall having parents. I remember nothing before arriving at this great pile of a castle.

He too seems to be deeply saddened. "My lady, we must tell you of a thing that happened. You won't remember it, of course. Not much I did in those days was very memorable." There it is, that self-deprecation he never quite abandoned, despite being an exceptionally powerful wizard.

"Shut up, Schmendrick." Molly sounds as tired as I feel. The affection in her voice is no less than it ever was, but the teasing tone is not there. "My lady, you are not well. You should rest."

"Molly," Lír says, sounding as tired and sad as I have ever heard him. "It's time she knew."

"I'm dying, aren't I." My voice sounds as strained as theirs do. "Whatever it is, please tell me."

The three most important people in my life, excluding my children and theirs, exchange glances around me. I can feel their pain, touch it like a physical thing. It occurs to me that my own pain is increasing, and for a moment, things grow dark. I fight it.

_The pain is intense, a cold fire burning through my entire body. It is as though I am being unmade and remade all at once. A cry escapes me, and it sounds like nothing I have heard before. The voice is not quite human. Not quite my voice – and yet more my voice than I can remember it being._

"Yes," Molly is saying. "Oh my lady, Amalthea is dying."

What a strange thing to say. I try to say so, but the words do not come out.

"I know you're thinking that's a strange thing to say," Schmendrick says, a little pompously – it is the way he always hides his pain. "But the incomparable Molly Grue is right. Amalthea is dying. But as for what that means for you… I don't really know."

"I don't understand."

Lír speaks softly. "My lady… My love. You were not always as you are. Before you came along, I was more of a dunce than a prince. It was for your sake that I got into the heroing business. The bad poetry, too. I did that all for you. But you weren't always Amalthea."

"Who…"

"Not precisely 'who', my lady," Molly said softly. "You were the last of your kind. You were on a quest to save the others… But you chose love. You chose Lír. You chose to remain human and live out your days in… in peace." She is trying to smile, but Molly's eyes are streaming. There is no shame in her tears; rather, I understand that she is trying to make the revelation easier for me.

"You are a unicorn, my lady," Lír speaks in something that is not quite even a whisper, and yet his words pierce my heart.

Or perhaps it is the pain of dying.

It makes no sense… a unicorn? I? Was I the last?

It cannot be. "I love you, Lír."

"And I you, my lady." We are all three of us covered in tears like ocean spray. Schmendrick alone seems to be dry, though not untouched.

"Can a unicorn love?"

"That, none of us could answer." It is Schmendrick who answers me. "Only a unicorn, and it pains me to say there are no more. They are gone forever, and the only one who could have freed them is human now." His tone is somehow mournful and flippant at once.

Were he anyone else, the words would have come out among agonized screams.

I know it as surely as I know my children's faces: he blames himself.

"It was my magic that did this to you. I could have tried to fight it, to control it, but it had control of me. I was young and stupid. Well, younger, and still stupid."

"Stop that, Schmendrick." It is not Molly who scolds him now but Lír, my beloved prince, my King. Lír. "Now is not the time to blame you."

The wizard blinks, taken aback; perhaps he has seen a meaning other than that which Lír intended in his words.

Some part of me wonders why I do not want my children by my side; it seems that it would be natural for a parent to want to say goodbye. All I want now is here in this room: these three tired old people who feel my pain and cry with me.

"I love you," I say. "And if I am, as you say, a unicorn, then either a unicorn can love, or you are wrong and I am no unicorn, and you are being cruel."

"Which would you rather?" Molly asks. Her tone is a little sharp. This is the Molly I know. "Would you rather we lie to you? Or would you rather be a unicorn?"

"What a ridiculous question!" Schmendrick blurts out. "Of course she'd rather be a unicorn! Who wouldn't want to be a unicorn?"

"I wouldn't," Lír says. "Not for anything. If I was supposed to be a unicorn, I would have been born one. Instead, I was born to be a prince, and then a hero, and now I'm a king. Maybe not a very good king, but I'm the best king I know how to be."

"I wouldn't," Molly adds. "If I were a unicorn, I never would have met you." She is speaking to Schmendrick, and to Lír, but her words are for me. I can feel it in a place that words should not reach. That too is painful.

It is too painful.

I can feel the frail flesh giving way; it seems Lady Death is indeed coming for me. I find I am not quite ready to give up. There is one more question that burns my all-too-human heart.

"What went wrong?"

"Wrong?" Lír asks.

"Yes. I should have saved them… Shouldn't I?"

"It was my fault. I wasn't good enough to change you back."

"But you're a true wizard now. If returning a unicorn to her true form is not the mark of a true wizard, how did you regain your powers?"

He stares at me, his eyes like the lilac-scented woods of my dreams. They grow wider and wider, and I am falling into them. Lír's touch is melting away. The pain is consuming me. There is nothing but pain now. Red, cold, burning pain like the Red Bull.

_The Red Bull stands over me, and suddenly I am no longer dying, no longer human. The wizard's magic came for him in truth; he is a true wizard and I am a unicorn once more, as I was before, as I am meant to be. L__í__r is rushing to protect me, and a soft voice in my heart cries out in protest. This is the part of me that loved him, and that always will. I have been given a great gift, but it is not a pleasurable one. I raise my voice in protest, rearing my defiance at this great beast. I cannot let him defeat me. I am the last unicorn._

_I will not remain the last. I will save them._

_And the dream that held me as the last of my human body disappeared into the myth from whence it came was only that: a dream caused by the pain of the transformation. I did not live out my human life. It has been only a moment since I fell to the ground a frail human girl. It was a lifetime lived in a moment; the magic gave me that._

_I will not be the last unicorn in the world after all… But I am the only one who knows regret._


End file.
